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Dr W Large Art of the
Modern Age 10
February 2007 11:43
Kantian
Prolegomena to
an Analytic Aesthetics 18 Baumgarten
is decisive
to the beginning of philosophical aesthetics is the linking of
experience of
the beautiful with knowledge gained through the senses, and more
specifically
through the imagination. For Kant
what is
decisive is the idea of an 'aesthetic Subject'. His
aesthetics is thus not a theory of art but an anthropology of aesthetic
experience and a transcendental analysis of the judgement that
translates that
experience into discourse. 18 Following
Baeumler, we
have to see that aesthetics is the very development of the subjective
inwardness which is no longer reducible to any kind of conceptuality -
since
taste is a feeling (individuality as a feeling rather than as concept). Philonenko
- that
aesthetics is an experience of 'interhuman communication and
individuality' 19 There are
3 fundamental
faculties for Kant
Each
faculty has it own
a priori principles which it is up to philosophy to discover -
categories and
pure intuition for knowledge, and the moral law for desire. The aim of The
problem for Kant is
that the feeling of pleasure seems to be intensely subjective, so how
can it
have any intersubjective validity? This is
what the four
moments of the analytic of beautiful are supposed to prove. 20 Practical
judgements
have an interest in the existence of object (where we speak of the
pathological
- sensation - agreeable, or the moral) We can see
also why
this must be only concerned with the formal aspects of the object - for
if I
were concerned about the material, then it would be a better of
sensations -
whereas aesthetic judgements are concerned with representations. The
former is
passive and the latter is active. Why are
judgements
universal - first of all because they have nothing to do with personal
preference or idiosyncrasy. It is not that I like the colour blue and
you like
the colour green, which has to do with sensations. But because
aesthetics is
representations without concepts, then the universality cannot be
conceptual.
If it were conceptual then it would have nothing at all to do with
feelings,
but with the understanding, and then we really could have a rule book
of
aesthetics. The
judgement of taste
has nothing at all to do with an object, but the relation
between a
subject and an object - how do I feel about this object, my
representation of
this object to myself, without recourse to any objective properties.
21 Not
objective
properties, but properties of the object as it is represented in the
mind (inner
object and not external). The universality has nothing at all to do
with the
object, but with the subject - the fact that subjects can share the
same
feeling. A work of
art can be
judged conceptually (this is what happens in the history of art for
example) or
it can be judged aesthetically, but one cannot deduce the one from the
other. For Kant
the judgement
precedes the feeling (the fact that I judge that everyone else should
share by
aesthetic pleasure) -thus the feeling of pleasure is the same as
communicability. In other places, they appear to be two interdependent
phases. 22 In
aesthetics the
object has the form of finality, but not the conceptual content of a
determinate end - the purpose of art is self contained in the
subjective
feeling of pleasure which is universally communicable. If something
pleases be
in terms of a determinate end then it is no longer aesthetic but moral
or agreeable. What is
finality
without end - it is the harmonious
resonance of our cognitive faculties and it is this that gives us
pleasure. 23 But do we
have to
accept that this harmony must be understood as a finality with
representation
of an end? The
necessity
accompanying taste cannot be conceptual or objective.
Rather it is exemplary - universal rule
without conceptuality. 24 The
universal
communicability of the judgement of taste is only regulative and not
determinative. It is an ideal horizon - that is I make a judgement that
everyone should agree with my judgement and not that every will agree
in fact,
since there is no objective rule to determine assent. Thus the
aesthetic
judgement is between the purely private sensation and the purely
objective
logical judgement. What is crucial here is the harmony between the
faculties. Knowledge
is the unity
of sensation and imagination - imagination is the mediator between the
understanding and sensibility through its temporal structuring of
sensation - I
already apprehend sensations in a temporal form - the imagination is
the bridge
between sensations and the understanding through the schematism. 25 In
aesthetic judgement,
imagination also brings the understanding and imagination into harmony
but not
through any kind of conceptual determination. The harmony is there
'indeterminate'. What we experience is a state rather than an activity,
which
Kant calls a 'play'. Aesthetic
reflection is
only ever related to the form of an object and never its matter
(sensation is
always private for Kant). But what is form - from the first critique we
can say
form is pure sensation which is time and space. But if this were the
same as
the pure forms of experience, then every perception would be the
experience of
the beautiful. 27 The
experience of the
beautiful is always the encounter with something singular in its form,
but it
can't be a private sensation. How can it both be singular and universal
(not
private), but not just be the pure forms of experience? It would have
to be the
singular experience of pure forms - how this object instantiates space
and
time, rather than the general forms of space and time as described by
mathematics for example. This is why aesthetics is not a brute feeling
but it
first of all a judging which produces the feeling of disinterested
pleasure.
This is
why Kant's
aesthetics is essential a visual one. 27 It is the
harmony of
the faculties which allow the aesthetic judgement to be both singular
and
universal, necessary and subjective. It is universal because I can
ascribe the
harmony of the faculties to every human being (though of course
empirical this
might not occur - it is only regulative. And is singular and subjective
because
it bears only on this object in front of me and my representations - I
do not
know whether a similar object will produce the same effect or even the
same
object. - thus it is an 'individual concrete encounter'. But the
possibility of
the harmony of the faculties is generic - it is a priori grounded in
the
possibility of the free play of the faculties (this is a transcendental
argument) and thus is universally communicable because it makes sense
to every
human being, though they might not agree with me because it is not
conceptual. It
demonstrates the subjective
conditions of all knowledge - for
anything to be known it must mean something for a subject and it must
be
intersubjective - this is the 'what is' for every human being, prior to
any
kind of conceptual knowledge. - if the representational state of human
beings
were not communicable then no knowledge would be possible, let alone
aesthetic
claims. 28 In terms
of Kant's
schematism, we might say that the former is only possible because of
the accord
between the imagination and the understanding. But why
give this
accord a transcendental basis - why not just claim that it is
empirical,
biological for example. 29 So for
Hume, aesthetics
is more normative, whereas for Kant it is the communication of a
generalised
feeling which is the basis of our humanity. It is utterly autonomous
for Kant -
nothing from the outside can determine by aesthetic feeling (no
knowledge or
concept). Natural
Beauty and
Artificial Beauty 31 That
Kant's theory of
beauty is a 'transcendental
anthropology' can be seen in the distinction between natural and
artificial beauty. Beauty
hasn't got to
with a certain class of objects for Kant, but the representation of
objects as
such. The predicate beauty therefore is not reducible to any properties
of an
object. It is not an object represented, rather it is object that is
maintained
in the state of representation (as though I keep the representation
within
myself, and don't refer it to anything outside of myself). 32 What Kant
is defining
is not a certain type of object, but the aesthetic
relation and to distinguish this from
other possible relations to an object. 33 It is the 'receptive
attitude'
towards the world which interest Kant, and not properties of an object
that
would determine in advance whether it was aesthetic or not. However,
in the latter
part of the analytic of the beauty, it does appear that Kant makes a
difference
between types of object, when he makes the distinction between natural
and
artificial beauty, and seems to valorise the former over the latter. Where is
the experience
of natural objects purer - because any object that is made can be
traced back
to the intention of the artist, and thus we can speak of an external
cause - I
cannot be completely disinterested in the existence of the object.
34 Because nature does not
admit of final
cause, and thus conceptual ends, then we will not be tempted to let our
understanding determine our imagination, whereas the opposite is the
case with
made objects, where we have to assume that there was an intention when
the
artist made it. 'The work exists because someone desired it.' This is
the case
even if we don't know what the specific end is, such as a pre-historic
artefact, we have to assume in this case that it must have an end. But couldn't we
separate
ourselves from this intention? 38 However the distinction
becomes more
complex in Kant, because it is not just artificial products that are
seen as
having determinate ends, but also natural ones - horses and human
beings. And
yet even a further complication is that Kant is willing to say that
even human
artefacts can be natural - as in wallpaper. It seems then that the
determinate
distinction here is between representational and non-representational
art. 39 It seems, therefore, that
the only art
that is in conformity with pure aesthetic judgement is decorative art.
Anything
that is representational betrays and end or purpose. But what is the
difference
between decorative art and the decorations that previously Kant argued
had
merely to do with the charm of an artwork, and should be separate from
any
aesthetic judgement (like the frame of a painting)? The only solution is to
separate the
production of art from intention and this is what Kant does through the
idea of
genius,
and also is
what is continued by romanticism.
That the end of art is itself -
'autotelic'. Genius and Taste 40 Genius solves the problem
of pure
aesthetic judgement by erasing the intentionality of the artist. Thus
the
artist is the origin of the artwork, but he himself does not the rules
through
which the art is produced. He is Blanchot would say only the first
reader. 41 What is at the heart of
genius is the productive
imagination
which is not limited to merely repeating empirical sensations and
therefore act
as the bridge between sensation and the understanding. This is why the
products
of the productive imagination are beyond conceptuality. It induces
thought, but
no thought as such would be able to capture it or be able to put into
words. 42 It is because the genius is
not
conscious of the ends of her work when she produces it
that it is the same as
natural beauty
though not exactly the same, since we know that it is still the product
of the
human hand. The paradox for Kant is
that the work of
Genius must be both original and also act as an exemplar, both to
inspire other
geniuses and at the same time to act as standard against those works of
art
that are not genius. It must be both original and communicable. 46 The beauty of
the artistic
object is not self-sufficient because we always sense the hand (and
thus the
intention) of its human creator. 48 It does not seem possible
to separate
the conceptual element from the experience of art as Kant might have
believed
he could - of course I have to have a direct sensuous experience of the
artwork
if I want to appreciate, but that does not mean that I don't have any
knowledge
of it at all, whether in terms of reception of production, and that my
appreciation of that art work would not improve because of this
knowledge. It is this complete
opposition between conceptual
judgement and aesthetic
experience which
is not justifiable, and even Kant cannot justify it. 49 The difficulty of Kant's
aesthetics
comes from the idea that one can have a finality without a specific end
(it is
not even believable perhaps in terms of nature) The work of art in Kant and
Romanticism 49 In what sense can we say
that Kant is a
romantic, if we define romanticism
as the transcendental unity of nature and art? 51 The biggest difference
between them is
that Kant's ideas always tied imagination to sensibility, whereas the
romantics
linked imagination to the ideas of reason. 52 For the romantics the
imaging function
of language creates its own referent.
54 It is the idea of the
autonomy of art
which is really taken up by the romantics. The difference between them
however,
is that for Kant it is a relation to the object, whereas for the
romantics it
is statement about the object itself: 'it expresses a relation between
a
representation and a subject, and not between a representation and an
object.' Aesthetics meta-aesthetics
and theory of
art 55 Kant's aesthetics is a
meta-aesthetics -
that is it has to with aesthetic judgement and not with objects and
this
belongs to reflective
judgement as opposed to determinative
judgement. 56 Reflective judgements don't
increase our
knowledge at all - it is simply about the relations between our
representations
and our different faculties. For this reason we can't
call aesthetic
judgement cognitive
since they do not supply any knowledge of the object. Thus does not
mean that
it is irrational, but is based on rational principle which is the
possibility
of it being universally communicable. But it is the communication of
feeling
not of a proposition - and not of proposition about feeling either -
here
language is a means, but it does not express the what the feeling is. 57 Even though aesthetics
judgements are
not about objects in the cognitive sense, they are always about
singular
objects - that is the art work has to be directly accessible. I do not
need to
experience the 59 One cannot give a rule in
order to which
one might say something is beautiful, because this implies that
aesthetic
judgement are cognitive - i.e. that one could give a list of properties
that
would always make some things beautiful and others not. What is at stake for Kant
is not 'types
of objects' but 'type
of mental attitude'.
Thus one can look at the same object with a difference attitude, once
in terms
of cognition and once in terms of aesthetics, and one can even do so in
relation to art, especially when we are thinking about 60 We can break this down to 3
levels for
Kant
62 It might be case that pure
aesthetic
judgements are the most simply aesthetics judgement, and that in every
case
that we make a judgement about art, it is always a mixture of the two,
feeling
and evaluation. It is also the case that my feeling towards an object
might
lead me to conceptual evaluation. 63 Doesn't my openness to
natural beauty
require a broadening of my conceptual possibilities - think of the
Japanese and
Chinese appreciation of the nature as opposed to the Western
sensibility. We should not confuse the
use of
concepts with objective knowledge here - the concept pick out what is subjectively
attractive, not some objective property of objects. |